JULY 2, 1956

NEW YORK—On Thursday the staff of the American Association for the U.N. met with Mr. Clark Eichelberger and myself in my apartment in New York. It is probably the last full staff meeting we will have until September. But we covered reports from every department and every activity into next winter, and I think all have a complete grasp of the scope of the work they are undertaking.

At 4 o'clock Dr. and Mrs. Rogers from Tampa, Florida, came in to speak with us. Dr. Rogers has just organized a new chapter in Tampa, and he is a most dynamic personality. There has been certain rather unreasoning opposition to the U.N.. in Florida, and this has caused a number of people who belong to the thinking element of the community to feel that something must be done to give more information to the people as a whole about the U.N. and its work. This is a healthy reaction which often happens to communities in our country.

The new developments in Soviet policy make one wonder whether the Soviets may have opened a Pandora's box, and when the contents fly out they may prove somewhat difficult to return to their original quiescence. All the different Communist parties in France, Italy and the United States are taking this opportunity, when discipline is lighter, to say what they think. Certainly Tito's remarks on his return from Moscow, as published in our newspapers, will tend to make the satellites feel that it pays to be independent. He said that in closer relations with the Soviet Union he had accepted no conditions that would tie his hands in domestic and foreign affairs.

These remarks, of course, are made because of the threat in our country since then to discontinue American aid to Yugoslavia. Tito did not deny Khruschev's statement that in a future war the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia would march shoulder to shoulder. This will give rise to a good deal of speculation, but I think there should always have been considerable speculation on this particular point. Basically, the decision as to what nations would be drawn together in a new war will depend on what the war is about. In the last war there were strange and curious alliances, and we will probably find the same thing again.

One good thing has come out of this new statement by Marshal Tito. He said clearly that he valued his ties with the West and that the Communist forces should not be allied against the world. We are none of us sure what the purposes underlying any Communist move may be, but this statement is a reassuring one.